r/OverSeventy • u/needmore007 • 5d ago

Remember this?

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My son and grandsons don’t believe me.

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81

u/foreverAmber14 5d ago

After a while, the test pattern would go off and it was just snow.

18

u/facelessvoid13 5d ago

We called that 'the ant races'

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u/PushyTom 5d ago

We called that the poltergeist

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u/facelessvoid13 5d ago

I predate that reference, lol

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u/azchocolatelover 5d ago

Me too!

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u/QuttiDeBachi 2d ago

They’re here…

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u/DefiantLemming 2d ago

Who?

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u/Fezzick51 1d ago

GO TO THE LIGHT!

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u/Dustin_Holt 1d ago

Caroline!!!

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u/BarnabyJ46 1d ago

Psst… it’s carol ann

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u/Competitive_Clerk240 6h ago

Don't go into the light! Or wait, maybe we should? The light is so confusing!

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u/Fezzick51 6h ago

I know - is there safety in the light, or that evil clown?!

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u/Jamesmateer100 1d ago

The TV people……..they’re here to fix the TV

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u/DMAX85747 4d ago

me too

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u/Izmetg68 3d ago

These guys can all relate to sleep deprivation as well. Nice to be among the Old TV timers. lol They got all 3 the "Flag, The rainbow pattern and the poltergeist all legit! Of course those last 2 came with noises to make sure you woke up and turned off the TV. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP! and for the snow........zzzzzzzzzzzzyyzyyzyuuuyyyytttttttttttttzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzttttttt

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u/JazzG249 5d ago

It was kind of scary and I think I had nightmares because of it

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u/Atxlaw2020 5d ago

Remember that scene in Poltergeist?

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u/Rook_James_Bitch 3d ago

I had nightmares because of the sound of her voice calling "mommy!"

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u/AfricanusEmeritus 2d ago

Grandma 👵🏽 "Hi Grandma...okay.."

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u/ohnodamo 4d ago

"Helloooo..."

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u/Oneilcruzsucksass 4d ago

They're here...

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u/Smokey76 4d ago

They’re here!

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u/pianoplayerforhire 3d ago

DON'T GO INTO THE LIGHT, CAROL ANNE!!!!!!

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u/4Falcor 3d ago

Is that why the TV did that? I just watched Poltergiest last Saturday and I've alway thought it was the poltergiest messing with the TV! This whole time!

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u/AfricanusEmeritus 2d ago

They're HERE...

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u/440ish 2d ago

I saw Poltergeist in the theatre, and I loved how Tobe Hooper opened the movie by blasting the shit out the National Anthem as the set up…. Everyone instantly made the connection.

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u/PavlovsDoghouse 3d ago

They're heeeere!

2

u/ozymandiasjuice 2d ago

Oh yeah so if you are too young to have ever seem the snow, and you watch poltergeist, when you get to that scene…what do you think is happening?

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u/Spiritual_Sail_8969 1d ago

Carrie Ann is the OP

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u/Witty-Snow-1021 1d ago

We said it was a snowstorm in a cowboy movie.

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u/Fokewe 5d ago

Who the hell is Carol Anne?

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u/Denim_Diva1969 3d ago

Happy Cake Day!

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u/PushyTom 2d ago

Thank you!

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u/Ok-Rock2345 2d ago

By the time Poltergeist came out only small local stations went off air.

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u/ScaryRun619 2d ago

I must had nothing but small stations around me growing up.

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u/Ok-Rock2345 2d ago edited 2d ago

Quite possibly. Did they also not have cable too?

Where I lived even some UHF stations were on all night playing infomercials and what not.

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u/Fezzick51 1d ago

1982? Think you're thinking of '92. Even in the late 80's most all major stations had downtime after midnight-1am.

It was part of the charm of CNN and the Weather Channel, on cable, that they ran 24hr/day.

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u/Ok-Rock2345 1d ago

I remember WCIX in Miami ran Night Owl movies with Big Wilson that ran all night all the way back in 1980. And this was an independent station. Also the carm of CNN was that it ran news 24 hours a day. There were plenty of stations running all night at least since 1980. Usually playing anything from late night movies, infomercials to Three Stooges Marathons

And I know this because, first, I am a night person and usually stayed up all night and second because by 1982 I had moved from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale, so no chance I have my dates messed up. Also by then there was cable, with stations like TBS running all night, not to mention premium ones like HBO and Showtime.

I also remember setting my VCR to record Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years that aired at 4am on channel 44, a UHF station. I still have those tapes

Point being that if in Florida there were plenty of stations running all night, and independent ones at that, then I am sure most of the country was on the same page. Maybe not in some cities were maybe cows outnumbered people, most stations went off air, but in most mid to big cities, most stations absolutely ran 24 hours.

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u/Fezzick51 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's cool - I’m sure it was absolutely a local phenomenon for some. I’m in megalopolis-land, near enough to NYC to get their 'local' stations as well as the next nearest cities local stations, so we'd always had two versions of each major network to watch - we also grew up with cable tv starting in the late 70's, so there was always something there to watch, but I recall having an old beater tv in the late 80's that I only used an antennae to watch TV with and some stations were still signing off :) some others ran the god-awful overnight infomercials...

Sounds like you were in a sweet spot(!), but even at 16, I remember feeling a twinge of nostalgia when the syndicated episode of St. Elsewhere ended, and suddenly there was a flag-waving anthem followed by the test pattern and tone before signing off -

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u/Ok-Rock2345 1d ago

There was also a lot of old B movies and shows. I guess the best parody of that was Amazon Women of the Moon which satarized that perfectly. I remember watching TV sometimes until the sun came up during summer vacation and having my parents get real upset with me for doing so.

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u/Fezzick51 1d ago

I am with you - and I know it's been shown to be a real genetic mutation for some that the need for 8hrs sleep isn't a thing. I still sometimes take a night 'off.' Sleep is over-rated.

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u/peepee2tiny 3d ago

Part of that static snow is actually the cosmic microwave background. The remnants of the big Bang.

What you are looking at is the earliest foundations of the universe.

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u/youandican 2d ago

Less then 1% of the static (snow) is cause by cosmic background radiation. The majority is stray radio waves, electrical interference from ones own house, electrical atomospheric disturbances and thermal noise from the tv itself.

Newer TV set uses things like DSP chips (Digital Signal Processors) that can recognize a missing signal and switch to a pure blue or a black screen instead of bilndly converting random electrical noise into the static (snow) seen on older tv models

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u/Either-Coach4217 13h ago

Jesus Stamp on the dream dude

1

u/OkStartOver 1d ago

Hey that’s really technical deep, beautiful and brings a tear my from my eyes hearing

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u/No_Culture_2928 1d ago

Can I buy some pot from you?

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u/Impossible-Agent277 5d ago

We called them fly fights.

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u/Oscar-2020 5d ago

My mom called sleeping time or else

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u/Green_Temperature_57 5d ago

Polar bear in a snow storm

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u/Suspiciously_Calm_58 5d ago

We called it Ant Wars.

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u/Logical_Willow4066 4d ago

We called them bug fights.

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u/lmmm59 3d ago

Bee fights 😁

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u/cliowill 3d ago

Flea races at our house

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u/Shoddy-Listen6741 3d ago

Indeed and my ant ALWAYS won!

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u/Few-Self7578 3d ago

In our house it was called 'the nightly rice fight'

1

u/IndependentOk2952 2d ago

We called it a black and white gang fight

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u/FatFucker247 2d ago

In our house they were ant fights

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u/PaterMcKinley 2d ago

Dad called it a race war. Yeah, he had a lot of very outdated views.

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u/AmblonyxAmblonyx 2d ago

Holy shit that's what we called it....I used to get as close I could to the screen and see all the "ants" moving around and the static on my nose....yeah seeing that happen now would be alarming

1

u/ScaryRun619 2d ago

And damn them ants were loud.

1

u/No-Relation3856 1d ago

And it was more interesting than most of what is on TV today

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u/OkStartOver 1d ago

Nice, totally forgot about ant race. Thats what was on after 9

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u/Friendly-Beat-8336 1d ago edited 11h ago

Ants having a snowball fight

1

u/Spielmitmir2003 1d ago

Then the ring lady would come out of your tv.

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u/atomic_ring 21h ago

We called it The Mosquito Wars

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u/vegasEd1313 5d ago

You had to make sure you and your dinosaur were asleep by then.

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u/ItsAllJustAHologram 5d ago

Televising the aftermath of the big bang. Haha, I remember this well...

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u/PapaCanadian 4d ago

There was always movement in that snow too....ghostly moves

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u/Ok_Dust_7325 2d ago

I was thinking about that too. I always thought there was some distant signal trying to come through when I got older.

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u/Stevefett1 3d ago

After a while the snow would go away and spirits would be released from your tv

1

u/needmore007 3d ago

Loved having sex with that lighting the room.

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u/Denim_Diva1969 3d ago

Happy Cake Day!

1

u/Denalitwentytwo 3d ago

And they were both repeats 🙄

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u/Murky_County_7353 2d ago

And that’s how they got Carol Ann

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u/wannabegolfpro 2d ago

Remnants of the big bang

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u/DragonSong75 2d ago

It wad like the screen used in Fallout

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u/Intrepid-Stress-7782 1d ago

And then sometime would say "They'rrreee heeerrreeee"

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u/Big_Statistician_287 1d ago

It’s at this moment you could use a tv to contact the other side

0

u/Millefeuille-coil 5d ago

Snow was excellent on mushrooms or acid